Who's behind the magpie.

Where I started

I was born in Michoacán, Mexico, and came to the United States with my family when I was five years old. We didn't have much — "dirt poor" is the honest term, and being candid: that hasn't fully changed yet. What changed is what I've learned to build.

Growing up between two languages and two cultures teaches you a specific kind of resourcefulness. You learn to figure things out from scratch because nobody around you knows the answer either. You learn that most expensive solutions have a cheaper, more careful alternative if you're willing to read the documentation. You learn that being underestimated has occasional uses.

I'm now an Arizona resident, a US citizen, and an LLC owner. None of that was inevitable. All of it was earned.

The other 19 years

Before software became the day job, the day job was numbers. I have 19 years of experience as a Registered Tax Preparer — with hands-on preparation work on every entity-level form a US small business owner is likely to file: Schedule C for sole proprietors, Form 1065 for partnerships, Form 1120-S for S-corporations, and Form 1120 for C-corps.

The path here ran through both of the industry's giants — TaxWise (Wolters Kluwer) and Intuit — so the form mapping, the e-file pipeline, and the reconciliation logic aren't theoretical for me. Before that, I spent time at City National Bank's Treasury Management department running the Datafaction (Legacy) and AgilLink contact centers (both, and then single-handedly running Datafaction). That's the platform family offices and treasury departments use to manage commercial banking, fund accounting, and disbursement at institutional scale.

That career is what makes the rest of this site — the software studio, the tax product roadmap, the small-business services below — credible. The software is the new tool. The expertise behind it is the unfair advantage.

Why I started Magpie

The name comes from the bird. Magpies are famously hoarders of shiny things — they collect what catches their eye even when they don't strictly need it. Mac users do the same with their disk space, their browser tabs, their cloud storage, their app installs. We collect digital stuff until it becomes friction.

My first product, MacJanitor, was born from a real moment of friction: I was working on an iOS development project, sat down to compile, and discovered I had 2.1 GiB free out of 460 GiB on my Mac. With contextual AI guidance, I recovered 130 GB in fifteen minutes — not by blindly deleting caches, but by understanding which files were dead weight for me specifically and which were load-bearing.

Magpie's job is to apply contextual AI judgment to chores that currently require either deep expertise or expensive software. MacJanitor is the first. The second and third are in the works.

What you'll see from Magpie

• Privacy as a first-class concern. Products are built locally; only the minimum data goes to AI providers, and never file contents. We have no telemetry, no analytics SDK, no servers harvesting your behavior.
• One-time pricing, not subscription traps. You buy once, you own it. Major version upgrades may be paid — minor and patch updates are always free. No auto-renewals.
• Honest documentation. A real help page, a real refund policy, a real EULA. If something can go wrong, we'd rather tell you up front.
• Slow, careful shipping. Magpie Studios is intentionally small. The goal is fewer, better products — not a sprawling portfolio.

Where I'd like to take this

Short-term: ship MacJanitor's next version cleanly, add follow-on products under the Magpie umbrella, and prove that a one-person studio can build software that real people pay for and trust.

Long-term: build a portfolio of utilities that handle the chores nobody else wants to automate, and reach the point where the company can support the people I love — including a house for my mother in Arizona. The honest version of that ambition is the one worth chasing.

Open for select work

Magpie Studios takes a small number of consulting engagements each year — AI-driven utility work, ML pipelines, or Mac-native tooling where the engineering bar matters more than the volume. Engagements are billed hourly or as fixed-price projects with detailed scope.

A few honest filters up front:

• Engineering quality before budget pressure. Magpie isn't a bargain shop — the work is the kind where one careful engineer beats five generic ones, and the rate reflects that.
• Scope is discussed before rate. A short call (or detailed brief) up front means the rate is accurate to the work, not a blind estimate.
• This is consulting on building things, not training, tutorials, or computer-literacy classes. If you're looking for a course or a how-to, a learning platform will serve you better.
• Public case studies welcome. If you're open to a write-up after the engagement, that's a feature for both sides.

If that sounds like your project, write to hello@magpiestudios.app with "Consulting" in the subject. I'll reply within 48 hours on business days with a quick read on fit.

Services for small business owners

Three direct ways to work together — built on the 19 years of tax-prep and bookkeeping experience described above. Pick the level of involvement that fits how you want to run your business:

• GrubTrucks Operator Suite — Founder's Tier: $1,000/year (USD) for 5 years, then free forever. Limited to the first 100 operators. $5,000 total across 5 years, then $0 every year after — you own the suite for life. Includes the complete software stack: real-time discovery, an inbound AI receptionist that takes orders while you're on the grill, food-truck-tuned bookkeeping that works alongside QuickBooks, and year-end tax preparation for every entity type. The reward for backing the project on day one.
  
  After the 100 founder seats fill: $1,250/year (USD) paid annually up front (17% off), or $140/month (USD) on a 12-month plan. Monthly customers qualify for $1,000/year loyalty pricing starting Year 2.
• Personal bookkeeping — $700/month (USD), month-to-month, cancel anytime. I'll be your bookkeeper. Month 1 includes three 1-hour onboarding meetings to get your books set up, answer your questions, and get the systems running. Months 2 onward include monthly reconciliation, your monthly P&L statement, and ongoing email Q&A. Annual upfront available at 17% off — $6,972 for the year, one bill.
• One-on-one coaching — $700/month (USD), 3-month minimum. For owners who want to handle their own books and LLC paperwork but want a real expert in their corner. Includes three 1-hour sessions per month tailored to your specific business; additional sessions at $200/hour. I'll draft a personalized plan in your first month and we'll work it together from there. Annual upfront available at 17% off.

Pricing shown in USD. We accept USD via standard payment methods, and we also accept XRP — email us for wallet details if that's how you prefer to pay.

To start any of these, email hello@magpiestudios.app with the package name in the subject. I'll reply within 48 hours on business days.

For the record

A few honest allegiances, all in good sportsmanship: Las Águilas del América in Liga MX (turns out the eagle theme runs through everything I love), the Dodgers in MLB, the Lakers in the NBA, and the 49ers in the NFL. Not to start a rivalry — just owning where my loyalties land. If you root for the other side, no offense taken on this end either.

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